Printing Industry Trends to Embrace in 2020

Lately, Digital disruption across the globe has affected the printing industry largely. High-end technologies are posing greater challenges to the printing industry. Besides emerging new digital technologies, rising environmental concerns are also raising questions on the current print methods.

Therefore, it’s imperative for printing companies to overhaul their current printing practices. And make them fit enough to stand new challenges. While several major players have already acknowledged the elephant in the room, the others haven’t. 

Let’s see what all printing industry trends print companies should adopt this year.

• Internet of Things (IoT)
  
  
  The Internet of Things has brought a huge revolution in the industry. Nowadays, smart printers are in great demand among almost all printing service providers. They help save both paper and resources. Besides, they can alert you about possible breaches and predict paper usage too when combined with AI.
  
  
  This way, the printing environment becomes more efficient and reliable.
  
  
• Personalization
  
  
  The growing popularity of personalization has generated new opportunities for the print industry. Printing service providers can help create personalized marketing copies for and personalized products.
  
  
  Demographic targeting, retargeting, location-wise targeting, life-event targeting are some ways printers can customize marketing copies for companies. Similarly, they can print personalized products for different e-store owners letting customers use Product designer tool.
  
  
  So, personalization of prints is a trend to go a long way towards revamping the printing industry in the years ahead.
  
  
• Security in Printing
  
  
  Securing printing work has become the need of the hour. Print companies must ensure that their printing services are cyber-secure. Big print companies have to deliver large print orders to their customers. 
  
  
  Thus, securing their customers’ sensitive data is safe from leak or tampering is of utmost importance. They can install security software and implement other major security measures to ensure printing security. As this is a way they can gain their customers’ trust and upkeep their rapport. 
  
  
• Artificial Intelligence
  
  
  Artificial Intelligence is an emerging wave of change you can’t ignore in any industry. Print management software using smart algorithms to:
  
  
   1. Recommend the right paper layouts and minimize paper wastage.
   2. Indicate the time for ink replacement or machine replacement using printing sensors.
   3. Reroute print jobs automatically to another printer if a printer goes down.
   4. Reduce the downtime of a printer machine.
  
  
  Besides saving resources, AI can help prevent unauthenticated printing jobs. Owners can secure printing jobs by using the ‘print authorization’ feature. This feature lets a company owner code every employee’s badge for particular print jobs as per their individual profile. Thus, everyone cannot carry out every print job. 
  
  
  For instance, while an HR can print a passport but a developer can’t. This feature not only secures print jobs but also helps assess the amount of paper and ink usage per department.
  
  
• On the Go Printing
  
  
  On the Go printing or cloud printing is becoming highly popular these days. Cloud printing eradicates the need for on-premise servers and employees. No matter where you are, you can carry a print job easily. 
  
  
  It also eradicates the need for a software driver to connect a device to a printer. Which means you can carry out driver-less printing with it. 
  
  
  Linux, Lexmark and other major print service providers have already started offering Cloud Managed Printing Services. However, small companies are yet to provide them for customers. 
  
  
• Print on Demand
  
  
  Print on Demand is one of the most popular printing industry trends today. In this method, only ordered copies of a document, book or any item are printed. This leaves no scope for wastage unlike in stock prints. Further, business owners do not have to worry about the ‘Out of Stock’ issue and can always take orders and deliver them. 
  
  
  A printing business owner can also earn huge profits and a rise in popularity as a printing service provider. So, adopting this new emerging trend will prove fruitful to the printing industry. Moreover, this type of service can become a new source of income for print companies.
  
  
• Sustainability
  
  
  Sustainable practices are very crucial in today’s world. People are now getting more and more concerned about the environment. And are switching to more environment-friendly practices.  
  
  
  Hence, printing service providers must convince their customers that their printing services and products are eco-friendly. It is up to an individual company owner to decide what they can do to make their print services environment-friendly. 
  
  
  Of course, people aren’t going to dictate the way one makes their printing services eco-friendly. But are definitely going to prefer an eco-friendly print service over a non-sustainable one. 
  
  
  Therefore, it is high time all print service providers switch to sustainable printing practices. And consider them a necessity rather than a luxury as earlier. Only then will they be able to retain their loyal customers for longer.
  
  
  Low carbon printing by HP is one such initiative. Looking up to HP and other major players is a must for all print companies to reconsider making printing practices sustainable. 
  
  
• 3-D Printing
  
  
  3-D printing technology is not that new. It’s been there for several years. However, its full-fledged adoption by the printing industry still remains. 3-D printing is necessary as it can serve a plethora of industries like automotive, firearms, aerospace, furniture, arts, and more.
  
  
  This implies that if all printing companies, whether big or small, embrace this trend whole-heartedly, they can benefit a lot. They can even cater to more custom orders from different industries and earn huge income. 

Conclusion

The change in the printing industry is in the air. A number of printing industry trends are knocking on the door. If a print service provider wants to survive and flourish, they must readily adopt these trends. Or else, they can get knocked out of the competition sooner or later.

Original Source: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/printing-industry-trends-embrace-2020-pratik-shah/

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